The crow
by TheStoryChoosesTheWriter
Summary: 4 part story. Set after "the devil inside" episode with a AU ending (Damon doesn't go off with Enzo) Delena. Fluffy angst. Delena.
1. Chapter 1

**I always wondered why Damon never got another Crow. You know, the crow from season one that used to stalk Elena fro him. He ate it after Stefan had locked him in the basement and Zach had scared Caroline away. But why did he never get a new one? why do we never find out where he got it in the first place?**

**Well I don't answer all these questions in this fanfic but he gets a new one. **

**When I started writing this it was fluff... but I warn you - though it has it's fluffy moments - this fanfic is not fluff... **

**I own none of the characters. the crow is mine. My crow.**

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THE CROW

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Chapter 1

Damon stormed angrily through the forest. How could Elena break up with him? Were all those times that she'd told him that she loved him just lying through her teeth? Of course, what was he thinking? He wasn't good enough for the perfect Elena Gilbert. How could he ever even expect her to even tolerate him? He wasn't good enough for her. He wasn't a good person. He was a murderer. She was innocent and better than him at everything. Breaking up with him had been the best decision Elena had made in her life, she should go back to Stefan; Stefan was the good brother.

He wiped a tear away from his face. He should just turn off his humanity. It was that easy! So why wasn't he doing it? Elena wouldn't approve of that... But what did he care what Elena thought? He'd got the girl and then he'd screwed everything up and Elena had gotten to her senses and broke up with him. Still, he let his emotions run their course, allowed the crippling agony to wash over him as he marched as far from civilisation as he could because he knew that the first human to cross his path was dead. He didn't want to be a bad person; he wanted to be the person Elena used to see him as. But he just couldn't change who he was.

A small tree collapsed as his fist collided with it. Why did Elena still have this hold on him? Why could he still not let go even when she'd made her feelings for him quite clear? But that hug had seemed real... The way she'd called his name when she first saw him had even given him hope... Then she'd taken it all away again...

He stopped his rampage through the forest as a thought occurred to him. It had been a very Katherine like act... But Katherine was dead and gone. Shaking his head, he continued to walk. He didn't know where he was going, just away - away from Elena, away from Mystic falls, away from life.

Eventually he got bored of walking and sat down on a particularly large tree root and then began wishing he'd brought some bourbon with him when he'd ran from the town like the coward he was. Oh if Ric could see him now... He'd slap him across the face and tell him to stop moping. Too bad Ric wasn't here. He did feel like Ric would be there telling him something... Something he was missing... Something that he already knew... But Ric was gone.

"Guess I didn't get the girl after all, huh Ric?" he sighed out loud. No one was there to laugh and scorn him for talking to his dead best friend so what was stopping him?

After what might have been seconds or years, Damon finally stopped staring at the sky, living in his head, and started taking in his surroundings. A bird had fallen from its nest beside him. It was still young having not yet opened its eyes or grown any feathers.

"Aren't you an ugly looking thing?" Damon said to it. For some reason he felt something toward this fragile little creature. It was a crow, something that most cultures saw as a death omen, people feared crows despite their beauty and grace. This baby crow was lost and broken. Damon related to the crow in a way he'd never related to anything ever in his long life. It made him think of the crow he'd had when he first moved back to Mystic falls. He'd always regretted eating that crow after Zach had chased his preferred meal – Caroline – away. And here this baby crow sat, in need of help. It was like fate, if you believed in such things.

The bird looked incredibly weak; the fall had probably caused it to break some bones. On a whim, Damon fed it a drop of his blood in the hope that it would have the same effect on the bird as it did on humans. To his surprise, it did! The bird seemed to find it easier to hold its own head up and soon got more aggressive.

With nothing better to do, not wanting to go back to Mystic falls and face up to the train wreck that was his life, Damon stayed with the bird. He would catch various woodland animals; drink their blood to prevent himself from desiccating – Stefan would be so proud - and feeding the flesh to the bird.

In seemingly no time at all, the crow began to grow feathers and began scrounging from its own food and eventually began to fly. After watching the crow grow up from this weak little thing that would have surely died within the day and into this strong, healthy creature with a bright future.

"Look who's not so ugly anymore," Damon smiled as the crow landed on his shoulder.

The crow squawked at him and Damon sighed.

"I know; I should go back..."

It squawked again.

"But I don't know how long I've been gone, Elena will have moved on by now..."

It squawked for a third time.

"Fine, okay, okay, I'll go back..." Damon got up and started making his way back to Mystic falls. The crow leaped from his shoulder and flew ahead, circling back to Damon ever now and then. "I can't believe I'm taking orders from a crow," he muttered to himself.

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**Reviews are greatly loved and cherished :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's part 2! It's still kinda fluffy at this point, don't you worry yourselves just yet :)**

**happy reading!**

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Chapter 2

Once back in Mystic falls, Damon returned straight to the boarding house and straight for his blood supply. He drank three bags in one go. The crow perched on the cooler lid, watching him.

"Don't look at me with those judgy little eyes," he frowned. "I've been off the human stuff your whole life, I'm hungry."

The crow squawked.

Damon shook his head and returned to the living room where he proceeded to drain his bourbon supply and once again enjoy the comforts of fine living.

"Damon!" Stefan exclaimed when he saw his brother sitting on the couch as if he hadn't been gone for however long he'd been gone for.

"Hello brother," he said.

"Where have you been?" Stefan asked.

"Around," Damon replied, not wanting to tell his goody, goody brother that he'd been moping in a forest for the whole time. "I got a pet crow," he said, gesturing to the crow that was perched on the arm rest next to his head.

"Cute," Stefan said sarcastically. "But while you've been pet shopping, we've had a huge problem on our hands."

"Oh?"

"It's Elena."

Damon almost dropped his glass of Bourbon. "What about Elena?" he asked, trying to keep his voice from cracking.

"She's possessed by Katherine."

"How... I mean... What... When did...?" Damon stuttered.

"Shortly after you disappeared... We noticed she started acting strange. She wasn't at all upset over the break up or worried about you in the slightest. She even started trying to flirt with me... That's when I began to get suspicious; Elena wouldn't do that to you... Bonnie is still searching on how to get her back."

"Can't we just kill the bitch?" Damon growled. "You know, like when Matt had the devil's spawn's boyfriend inside him and that knife killed him?"

"No, it's more than that," Stefan said, a few more worry lines appearing on his already crowded forehead. "She's not just possessed; Katherine has taken full control of her body. She's in the basement now but none of us have been able to get through to her."

The crow squawked and then stared meaningfully at Damon. "How do you do that?" Damon growled at it. He waved his arms in the air and looked imploringly at Stefan. "It's a crow, how is it so intelligent?"

Stefan shrugged, worry for his brother's sanity plain on his face.

Damon huffed when the Crow ruffled its feathers and then, with a sigh, he made his way down to the basement. "Why won't you just _die_ already?" he said to bring Katherine's attention to him.

"Damon," Katherine greeted him. "I thought you'd never come back after I – I mean, Elena – broke up with you."

A weight seemed to lift off of Damon's chest as he finally understood. Elena hadn't broken up with him, Elena might still love him! It'd been Katherine. "You're gonna need to leave now," he growled.

"I'm not going anywhere," Katherine smirked.

Damon sneered at her. How dare she use Elena like that; how dare she corrupt her. He should have smothered with her with that pillow when he had the chance and buried her body in cement. He burst into the room and pushed her against the wall.

"How _dare _you," he growled. "I will not allow you to do this, bitch. _Get out_."

"You can't make me do anything," Katherine smirked.

He slammed her against the wall, poised to fight. He was stronger than her, she was weak and starved of blood, and he'd just drunken his way through three blood bags. "No. But I'm sure as hell going to have fun trying."

"You won't hurt me, you wouldn't risk hurting poor little Elena, you know she's still in here... somewhere."

Damon hesitated. He knew it could be a lie to save her life but he wanted to believe that Elena was still there. He _needed _to believe Elena wasn't gone forever.

He tried to look for a trace of Elena in Katherine's face. All he saw was the bitch that had ruined his entire life. "Elena," he said desperately, trying to ignore Katherine's smug expression. "Elena if you're still in there, please." His voice cracked as he pleaded Elena to listen to him. She was the best thing to ever happen to him, without her he was a monster and he needed to try and get through to her even if it meant showing weakness in front of Katherine. If he couldn't get Elena back... Well... he always had Enzo's number; he'd been itching for a killing spree before he'd sent him away.

Katherine turned her head to the side. "Hmm... Nope, nothing, I'm still Katherine." The crow flew into the room and perched on Damon's shoulder. Katherine glared at it. "What is that?"

"This is my Crow... I call him Ric..." Ric squawked in approval of the name.

"That's pathetic," Katherine laughed.

Ric squawked and Damon nodded. "Yeah, you know what, Ric's right. You are a bitch. And that's just how Elena's going to kick you out. She's the best person you'll ever meet. She's strong and when she knows what she wants, she gets what she wants. Elena, I know you're in there and you need to know that I need you, I believe in you... Please don't leave me with this weirdly intelligent crow..."

Katherine continued to smirk, nothing but pity for the pathetic sight of a man losing his mind in front of her in her eyes. "You really think a moving speech is going to get rid of me? I'm stronger than Elena and I have full control of this body."

Damon refused to move, he continued to stare into her eyes, Elena's eyes. He told her all of his secrets with that stare, knowing that Katherine was too dense and Stefan obsessed to catch them. He needed to let Elena know how much he knew he'd screwed up and how much he needed her. He needed her to fight because he couldn't fight for himself without her.

Katherine gasped. "No!" she screamed.

"What the f-...?" Damon asked.

"Damon?" It was Elena's voice. While they technically had the exact same voice, Elena's seemed less nasally and had more kindness to it– Katherine's imitation of that tone had been pale by comparison; she just didn't have the capacity to mimic that level of compassion. Despite everything that had happened to her, that voice was still filled with love and innocence. He heard the confusion and the trust in her voice.

"Elena!" he said, his voice cracked again in that single word.

"Damon, it's Katherine, she's..." Elena said, struggling to keep control of her body.

"I know," Damon said, pulling her into his arms. "You can do this, Elena, fight! I believe in you!"

"I love you, Damon. Whatever Katherine said..."

"I love you too," he replied. Hearing her say those words made the world around him stop spinning, it was like he's finally took a breath after holding it for so long.

And then she pulled away and it wasn't Elena that he was looking at anymore. "You're not getting rid of me that easily, Damon."

Damon gave her a long, cold glare and then shrugged. "Fine, I can wait." Then he walked out of the basement, locking the door behind him.

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**ItAllStartedWithABigBang: The fact that no one has noticed it's not Elena yet is making me REALLY ANGRY! I almost stopped watching the show. Almost. I love the vampire diaries too much to stop watching it because a few episodes were complete sh*t**

**thank you to everyone who's Favorited and followed. Please review, I'm a needy control freak that needs attention - sort of like season 1 Caroline, send help in the form of reviews :) xx**


	3. Chapter 3

**And here is part 3 out of 4 :) **

**This chapter seems confusing I guess but lets call it purposeful... It's from Elena's point of view and Elena has to be confused right now, right?**

**happy reading!**

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Chapter 3

Being pushed into a dark corner of your own mind, while your evil doppelganger wreaked havoc in your own body, wasn't the most pleasant of experiences. Most of the time, everything was dark, but sometimes Elena would catch glimpses of where she was and what was being said. When she'd heard Damon telling Katherine how much of a good person she was and how that was her key to beating Katherine, she'd believed him. She'd fought Katherine down and instantly flung herself into his arms, drawing strength from his warm embrace.

Day by day Katherine became weaker and weaker as Stefan and Damon deprived her of blood. While this in some ways made it easier to fight against Katherine, it also meant that she was becoming weaker too. Each day Damon would come and sit in the basement and some days, she'd hear him.

He always switched between desperate words of encouragement and pleads toward her and cold jibes and insults to Katherine.

"Come on, Elena, I need you... You have to meet my new pet!" he said once. The intrigue alone as to why Damon had a pet was enough to help her make a chip in the wall Katherine had around her preventing her from having control of her body.

But the wall was thick and reinforced by traveller magic. If it was traveller magic that gave Katherine full control of her body in the first place, maybe only traveller magic could get her out. All Elena needed to do was get a few seconds of control so she could tell Damon.

That was definitely easier said than done.

There was nothing physically there to fight against. Since becoming a vampire, she'd felt strong, like she could actually have a fighting chance against all things supernatural. Now she felt weaker than ever before. The only thing she had in her favour was the will to fight and even that was quickly fading as she saw less and less of the world around her and was slowly being pushed out of existence.

But then, there were the little bursts of the world that she did see that gave her the will to fight back. Caroline and Bonnie were sometimes there, shouting abuse at Katherine and willing her to fight. They were doing everything they could to try and help her but they hadn't figured out that they needed a traveller to help them. Or maybe they had figured that out but just couldn't find one willing to help...

"We're doing everything we can, Elena, we're gonna get this bitch out of your head," a disembodied voice reached her through the darkness. She couldn't tell who it was that was speaking but it gave her hope. And hope was more than Katherine had. Elena couldn't tell how long Katherine had been locked in the basement but she could feel the toll it was beginning to take on the both of them. Every breath burned and her veins rubbed together like sandpaper. Even in the periods of darkness, the pain was still there. But the pain was real; it was something to hold onto. It meant that she was still alive, she still existed.

Then there was the crow. The crow seemed to be always there, staring at her. Watching. Elena couldn't decide whether it was protecting her or deciding whether or not to attack her. She couldn't tell why it was there, or if it was actually there at all. It reminded her of the crow that had followed her when Stefan and Damon had first come to Mystic falls. She hadn't seen it again after she found out about the vampires...

Her blood deprived mind couldn't really comprehend anything anymore. All she knew is that she had to fight. What she was fighting for, she didn't know anymore. What she was fighting against didn't make sense at all.

The flashes of the world were becoming more and more few and far between. All she ever saw was the crow. She didn't know what it meant but she somehow knew that it was trying to tell her something. To fight – fight against the darkness in order to survive. Someone needed her. Through the darkness she was losing the sense of who she was and who it was that needed her but she knew that _someone_ needed her so she did as the crow told her and fought.

Soon even the crow seemed like a distant illusion in the shrouds of darkness that surrounded her. She was losing the sense of herself and yet, the crow – now only a mere hallucination in Elena's mind – remained to hold the key to her way out of the darkness...

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**Jessjunky: haha, I'm glad you like it :) I wish they'd do something like this in the TV show too**

**Guest: Thank you xx**

**ItAllStartedWithABigBang: aww I'm glad you think so :) **

**Okay guys, lets make a prayer circle in hopes that this week's episode isn't going to be so shitty.**


	4. Chapter 4

**This is the last chapter. enjoy :)**

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Chapter 4

"I'll help you," A girl said. She had reddish brown hair and an angry expression.

"And who are you?" Damon asked the girl who had walked into the house without introduction; nobody had even seen her before.

"I'm Mia, the traveller that helped Katherine take full control of Elena's body," the girl said.

Damon jumped up so he could tower over her. "If you helped Katherine, why do you want to go against her now?"

"Because, she killed me," Mia shrugged.

Damon gave a questioning glare.

"What you think I'd be dumb enough to work with a Petrova and not use a protection spell?"

Damon shrugged. "Smart girl... How do I know you're not going to make things worse?"

"I'm the one that cast the spell allowing Katherine full control, so I'm the only one that can reverse it."

Negotiations had gone worse in the past. Damon sighed at his lack of options and gestured for Mia to follow him to the basement. It physically pained him to see Elena in the weak state that she was but he consoled himself with the thought that it was also Katherine there.

"How long is this going to take?" Damon asked while Mia muttered a few incoherent words.

"You vampires have no patience!" Mia snapped. "I need quiet."

After some time, Mia stopped chanting and looked around.

"What's wrong?" Damon asked.

"I don't have enough strength to do the spell without channelling something powerful..." Mia explained.

"Like what?" Damon asked.

"I need to use sacrificial magic... The crow..."

Damon shook his head slowly. "No," he whispered. "Not Ric... No, surely there's something else... I'll go and get you a different crow!"

"No, that crow... There's something about it... I can feel its power... It has a connection to Elena."

"A connection?" Damon asked. "That's ridiculous."

Mia shrugged. "Do you want Elena back or not?"

Damon nodded and watched in horror as Mia ripped Ric's guts out, ruining his perfect feathers and continued her spell. Everything and everyone he'd ever loved always got ruined. Everyone except Elena... This was his chance at making sure that never ever happened. He was never going to let Elena get ruined. Not ever.

"It's done." Mia stepped back and left the house without another word.

"Damon?" Elena said tentatively, sounding like a little girl who'd just woken up from a long sleep.

"Elena, how do you feel?" Damon asked, pulling her into his arms.

Elena collapsed into him, not able to hold her own weight. After a minute or so of just breathing him in she replied to his question. "I'm thirsty."

Damon chuckled and changed his position so that they were both sitting more comfortably on the old bed. Then, Caroline came in holding three blood bags.

"A toast!" she announced happily, handing each of them a blood bag and opening her own, "To that bitch finally being out of our lives for good!"

"I'll drink to that," Damon said, opening his own.

"Cheers," Elena managed to mutter before draining the whole bag in a matter of milliseconds.

Caroline chuckled. "I'll go and get you another; you've been desiccating for a good few months now."

"Thank you," Elena said; her voice was still a little croaky.

"Are you okay?" Damon asked, looking her over for any sign of harm.

"I'm fine now... When Katherine was still in control I kept seeing something – a crow..."

Damon didn't meet Elena's eyes, not wanting her to see the pain in his after the loss of his pet; it was pathetic. "Yeah... After you – Katherine – broke up to me I went out into the forest and found a baby crow. It was dying so I... I helped it..."

"Aw that's sweet," Elena said, not even a hint of a condescending tone, she really meant it.

"But the traveller doing the spell to free you from Katherine's control needed to use sacrificial magic..." Elena frowned as she caught on as to where Damon was going with his story. "Apparently the crow had some sort of connection to you? I have no idea how since you'd never seen it before... So she used the crow and the spell worked."

"What did you call the crow?" Elena asked.

Damon snorted. "What makes you think I would name it? I saved its life so it started following me everywhere. I didn't name it; it was just a crow!"

"Damon," Elena sighed. She knew she'd named it. Damon lit scented candles, had bubble baths, was a complete neat freak and the sweetest guy you'd ever meet if you could look past the whole psychopathic serial killer aspect of his personality (which Elena did easily nowadays).

"Ric... I called the crow Ric..."

"Oh, Damon," Elena said, pulling him into her arms. He pretended like he didn't care, like it was just a crow. But now Elena saw that the crow had been his best friend and had helped to pull him out of the dark which Katherine had plunged him into by breaking up with him.

"It's just a crow, Elena," he sighed.

Elena didn't stop hugging him but didn't say anything either; she knew that pushing him to share his feelings would only make matters worse.

"Here you go, Elena," Caroline sang before she saw them clinging to each other. "Oh... I'll just come back later then."

Elena looked up and pulled away from Damon reluctantly. 'No, no,' she called out. 'It's fine, really. We can stop.'

'No, let her go,' Damon protested.

Caroline laughed and handed Elena the blood bag she had brought her and sat down next to her. Elena managed to drink this blood bag at a more controlled pace so she could talk to her friends normally.

'Why don't we go and sit upstairs, there's no reason for us to stay here anymore,' Elena suggested.

'Sure,' Caroline agreed and the three of them joined Stefan in the living room. Soon, Bonnie, Jeremy, Matt and Tyler also joined them along with (according to Jeremy and Bonnie) the ghosts of Ric and Vicky.

'We're finally in the clear,' Matt said with a sigh of relief.

Damon threw a pillow at him. 'Way to go, Matt, you just jinxed us all!'

'We're never fully in the clear anyway,' Stefan sighed. 'There's always going to be something...'

'At least we're all here together,' Bonnie said, snuggling into Jeremy who happily responded by wrapping his arm around her. Elena nodded and cuddled into Damon who grinned like a child in a candy store. Even Stefan allowed himself to smile at the sight of his brother finally being happy. Caroline and Tyler shared a brief moment of awkwardness which was then interrupted by Jeremy suddenly guffawing seemingly unprovoked.

'What?' matt asked. 'What's so funny?'

'You...' Jeremy gasped through his laughter. 'You got a pet crow... and called it Ric?'

Damon frowned and tried to look angry in order to cover his embarrassment but it was hard to be angry with Elena smiling up at him like that. 'What's it to you?' he asked.

Jeremy finally managed to control his laughter. 'Well... ehem... Ric says he's touched...'

'Ric's here?' Damon asked, looking around. Jeremy nodded and gestured over to where Ric's ghost was standing.

'He says that he doesn't know how he should feel about having a crow named after him,' Bonnie chuckled.

'He should be proud,' Damon said. 'That crow died to save Elena.'

'And for that I am eternally grateful,' Elena smiled, placing a kiss on Damon's cheek which slowly progressed into a lot more than just a little peck on the cheek and everyone promptly left, groaning in disgust as they went, as the couple celebrated their reunion.

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**Thanks to all of you that have Favorited, followed and reviewed this, I love all of you! And praise the gods that they finally figured it out! I was screaming at the screen as it happened... good luck for this weeks episode. thanks for reading x**


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